A River Apart

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

The War of 1812 provides the setting for this historical fiction, which
pits former friends and neighbors against each other.

Only the mile-wide St. Lawrence River separates the Canadian Shaw
family from their American neighbors, the Jacksons. However, with the
declaration of hostilities, Malachi Jackson, a hawkish legislator in
Ogdensburg, New York, forbids his children, Jared, 14, and Leah, 15,
from associating further with their Upper Canada friend, 15-year-old
James Shaw. Jackson reinforces his interdiction by persuading military
authorities to declare that Canadians caught on the American side of the
river will be treated as spies. When Jared becomes an army drummer and
James a member of the Prescott militia, the friends fear that they may
meet in battle. The war also interrupts the developing romance between
James and Leah.

Sutherland sets his plot solidly in the 1812–13 military clashes that
occurred as the two communities struggled to control their portion of
the southern section of the St. Lawrence River, the principal military
supply route. There is action aplenty as James, seriously wounded during
a failed attack on the Ogdensburg guns, is nursed back to health by
Leah, elects to become a prisoner of war rather than accept a
noncombatant parole, escapes, avoids recapture, and then rejoins the
militia, only to shoot Jared during the Battle of Crysler’s Farm.
Sutherland also creates numerous moral conundrums for his characters
wherein they must choose between loyalty to country or to friends. A
brief historical chronology, a map, and a glossary add to the book’s
sense of authenticity. Recommended.